


every day with someone new

by muppetstiefel



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Childhood Sweethearts, Cigarettes, Courfeyrac And Grantaire Are Best Buds, Courfeyrac being Courfeyrac, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Violence, F/M, First Love, Friends With Benefits, High School, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 11:49:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19250599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "At the age of five, love still seems bewildering. It’s something adults feel, a grand spectacle, indescribable and all consuming. It’s what his mamma feels for his papa. It’s what movie stars feel every day. It’s what his sister Amelie refuses to stop reading about. And yet, on a pier in Bournemouth with a scraped knee, Courfeyrac feels love for the first time."Courfeyrac falls in love with everyone he meets. Some leave more of an impression than others.





	every day with someone new

Courfeyrac loves Combeferre first.

  
At the age of five, love still seems bewildering. It’s something adults feel, a grand spectacle, indescribable and all consuming. It’s what his mamma feels for his papa. It’s what movie stars feel every day. It’s what his sister Amelie refuses to stop reading about.]

  
And yet, on a pier in Bournemouth with a scraped knee, Courfeyrac feels love for the first time.

Its Combeferre, the boy staying in the caravan next to him who presses a kiss to his knee and wraps his scarf around it. its Combeferre who holds his hand while he cries and later splashes him with water while he shrieks.

Its Courfeyrac who says they’re going to get married someday. Its Combeferre who solemnly agrees.

It’s a summer romance, as much as it can be when your five. And when Courfeyrac is bundled into a car he watches as the other boy is only a pinprick in the distance, thinks about him until he’s only a small sore spot in his heart.

 

* * *

 

Courfeyrac loves Grantaire in the way only teenagers can.

Fourteen is the year of yellow doc martins and peter pan and algebra homework. It’s the year of first parties and star trek reruns and his first cigarette.

Its also the year of Grantaire.

Grantaire arrives in Courfeyrac’s life without much warning, and with immediate effect. Something about the boy shrouded in shadows intrigues him. Grantaire sits alone, eats alone, walks home alone. Courfeyrac is constantly surrounded by people. So it’s only natural they become friends.

They sit next to each other in maths. Courfeyrac sucks because he can’t pay attention. Grantaire sucks because he won’t pay attention. Instead they swap notes and share Grantaire’s headphones. Sometimes they skip class and sit on the wall outside school, sharing Courfeyrac’s packed lunch.

Grantaire is the most solid fixture in Courfeyrac’s life for a while. He’s there every day after school. He goes on holiday with his family. He shares his lunches and talks to him about everything.

He holds Courfeyrac’s hand when he comes out to his mamma. Holds him close as he cries after coming out to his papa.

He presses kisses to the corner of his mouth and showers him with love and Courfeyrac knows its just a gesture of lonely friendship but he doesn’t care. Grantaire tells him he loves him. Always ends it with ‘mate’ or ‘dude’. Courfeyrac takes what he can get.

Grantaire gets into fights. Courfeyrac bails him out.

Grantaire comes to school with a black eye. Courfeyrac patches it up.

Grantaire cries and screams and hits at him. Courfeyrac takes it.

Grantaire says nothing. Courfeyrac stays with him.

In their last year, the dam bursts. Grantaire stops showing up, leaves his seat in maths vacant. He takes his exams at home. And Courfeyrac sits alone, no one across from him. He passes his exams. He drags himself to prom. Grantaire doesn’t show.

At the end of the night, Courfeyrac sees him by the school gates. He’s wearing a tux, tie hanging limp around his neck. He’s smoking. Smirking.

Courfeyrac screams at him till he deflates. “where the hell have you been?” and “what the hell is wrong with you?” and “why the fuck did you abandon me?”

Grantaire just takes it. then he collects the broken pieces of Courfeyrac into his arms and pulls him together. They both sway to imaginary music as Courfeyrac’s last pieces of love fall to the ground in chunks.

 

* * *

 

Loving Enjolras is the easiest.

Something about the man makes him easy to love. The way words roll softly off his tongue, falling captivatingly into the waiting crowd.

Or maybe it’s the way his hair dances under the light, shimmering and bouncing softly.

Or maybe it’s his rough kindness and how he wraps it awkwardly around his friends, like a protective layer.

Whatever it is, it gets Courfeyrac.

He meets Enjolras first. They take the same international politics class and Enjolras winds up next to him in the first lecture. Enjolras winds Courfeyrac around with his tongue until Courfeyrac is agreeing to come to a meeting he’s setting up.

He blames Enjolras’ looks. It’s really the fault of his voice.

The first meeting has a grand attendance of three: Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Enjolras’ childhood friend.

Combeferre.

The boy from the beach in Bournemouth.

Courfeyrac spends most of the meeting holding his breath. Watching Combeferre and seeing if he remembers too. He doesn’t seem to.

The meeting ends pathetically, with Courfeyrac promising to drum up more supporters and Enjolras clenching his fists by his side.

God, he’s hot when he’s angry, Courfeyrac whines to himself.

It takes three weeks to drag Grantaire along, and even then it requires bribing, begging and literal pulling. The places is busier than last time, a small eclectic collection of people huddled around a central table.

Its then that Courfeyrac learns what Grantaire really looks like in love.

Courfeyrac stops loving Enjolras as easily as he started. For Grantaire.

 

* * *

 

Loving Marius hurts the most.

His parents always told him he would adore university. All the new faces, new people to learn and to love. That he would thrive when surrounded by lives and souls.

What they didn’t tell him was how hard it would all be. How busy he would find himself and how isolated he would wind up. How scrubbing tables for minimum wage would grind him to exhaustion until he never wanted to see another person ever again.

So, for a while, he severs himself off. Spends the nights curled on his bed eating bowl after bowl of cereal. The only person he really talks to is Marius.

Marius. The boy crashing on his sofa. the boy who always curls up next to Courfeyrac and strokes his hair and asks about his day.

The boy who Courfeyrac is sure is the one.

When they kiss Courfeyrac doesn’t want to ever go anywhere else. When they lie together the rest of the world fades to a cloud of black. If he never leaves the house, he can have Marius as much as he wants. If he never leaves it will never go away.

Holding on to Marius is like holding onto sand. He just keeps slipping through his fingers, chasing a mirage he thinks he sees in the distance.

2 AM. In the kitchen. Marius finds her. Courfeyrac smiles and rips out his own heart. It belongs to Marius, anyway.

Somehow he lives through the pain. Every day he gets up and goes to class, scrubs tables and lays awake all night.

He lives through the pain until It’s only a dull throbbing.

Until he meets Eponine.

 

* * *

  

Courfeyrac loves Eponine selfishly.

Not that she is doing any different.

He meets her in his own kitchen. She’s crying into a bottle of vodka. Courfeyrac takes her and smooths her out until she’s no longer crooked and no longer crying.

Together, they both try to forget Marius. Sometimes she cries during sex. He always wipes away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. Sometimes he feels numb and she is there, restarting his engines so he can feel something again.

They drink. They fuck. They hold each other like survivors of a shipwreck.

Courfeyrac looks after her little brothers. Eponine gets him a job at her work, a little more than minimum wage for a lot more than cleaning. Together they push through to the other side.

Its Eponine who ends it. It’s neat and easy and they part with an amicable sense of healing.

 

* * *

  

Courfeyrac loves Joly and Bossuet together.

He likes to watch them. With most couples he feels envious, anxious and jealous. With Joly and Bossuet, all he feels is soft.  
Separately they are all lines, sharp angles and cutting edges. They slide together, a perfect fit. Two halves of the same whole.

They finish each other off nicely. Smooth over the cracks.

Courfeyrac feels their fights. Rejoices when they make up.

He loves them as a two.

And with Musichetta, he loves them as a three.

He loves the idea of love that comes with them.

 

* * *

  

Loving Bahorel is fun.

Everything about him is fun. His fashion, a mix of lumberjack and stripper. His inability to take anything seriously. The money he spends on board games instead of groceries.

They’re an odd couple, and one lacking any common sense, but they work for a while.

They fuck. They play video games. They go to fancy restaurants. They get high. They prank call their friends.

Its simple and its fun and Courfeyrac cherishes it.

They never call it off, but instead they fade out. Courfeyrac comes round less often and Bahorel turns to solo escapades, and then to joint adventures with Feuilly.

And Courfeyrac becomes a bemused onlooker instead.

 

* * *

  

Courfeyrac loves Jehan fully.

With Jehan, he never had to hold back. They always saw through him anyway.

Jehan was the first to scoop him up after Marius. Always the first to call. To lend him a book. To organise a coffee and a catch up.

Jehan knows Courfeyrac, inside and out. They guide him through his parents’ divorce, pepper the pain with kisses. They fall together with ease.

He loves Jehan the longest. They are a couple, a perfect melody of two, lilting gently on the breeze.

They live together. They condense their lives into one life. They go to weddings. They go to funerals. Jehan makes him eggs. Courfeyrac books them tickets to open mics.  
At two years it feels like it will never end.

At three years it does.

Its messy and painful and Courfeyrac wishes he really had given his heart up when Marius breaks it.

Jehan tears through the stitches they so delicately wove. Dumps the thread next to the bandages on the floor.

Their stuff is gone in three days. And Courfeyrac scrubs his life clean.

 

* * *

  

Courfeyrac loves Montparnasse messily.

Their love is dirty and raging. Tattered collar bones and bruised arms and pain so bad he forgets all about Jehan.

And afterwards, Montparnasse is gentle but his touch is like ice and Courfeyrac doesn’t want it. he doesn’t deserve it.

He searches around outside of Montparnasse. After all, they were never exclusive. Nothing burns quite right. Nothing makes him numb enough.  
Montparnasse sits with him at the clinic, stoic and angry.

He still holds Courfeyrac when he cries.

Then he leaves him on Enjolras and Combeferre’s doorstep.

Courfeyrac weeps the entire time, wishing he was numb, wishing he could forget.

Combeferre tries to piece him together. But he only knows the ice cream stained five-year-old, who picked flowers and destroyed sand castles. So they call Grantaire, who knows the messy, sobbing teenage Courfeyrac.

Together, they smooth over the cracks. Press the pieces together like a jigsaw.

The bandage is only temporary. But it helps.

 

* * *

  

Courfeyrac loves Combeferre last.

It takes a while to set himself right again and Courfeyrac is twenty-six before he fits himself at last. Every day he tests himself: tries for a smile in the mirror and listens to his favourite song.

He mends the bridges with his papa. Apologises to Eponine for using her. Wraps himself in the love of Joly and Bossuet and Musichetta. Throws himself into friendship with Enjolras. Feels proud for Grantaire and his new love.

He talks to Jehan. Edges back into friendship. Smooths over all that’s gone before.

And once all that is done, he finds love at last.

Combeferre, who rocks him gently through the first few months. Reminds him to take his medicine and helps him catch up on his coursework and watches documentaries with him.

Combeferre, who graduates in the summer.

Combeferre, who proposes at twenty-eight.

Combeferre, who whispers through the darkness on night, “I’m glad we met.”

“Me too,” Courfeyrac returns.

“No, I mean- I’m glad we met in Bournemouth that summer. It was the best summer of my life.”

Courfeyrac loved Combeferre first.

And he loves him last.

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one where the idea has been bouncing around for a while and I just decided to get it all out.
> 
> The title is taken from Someone New by Hozier!!


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